Sunday, August 26, 2007

Discover motiva

I found an ad for the Discover Motiva card interesting. The ad focused on how the Motiva card gives a reward by paying you a month of your interest if you pay your bills on time for 6 consecutive months.

The actual benefit is slim. They're just offering a slightly lower APY across the entire year by waiving the interest for 2 months. What struck me is that the really encourage (and happily assume) that people are going to be carrying balances on their credit cards, thus enticing them with this deal. I also found myself wondering if there really were so many people out there who can't pay their bills on time 6 months in a row. The idea of "paying your bills on time" as a reward suggests that many don't, in fact, pay on time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I know the offer you're referring to because I got it myself. The concept of paying the bill on time consistently seems relatively simple. So if you're carrying a balance anyways, why not get 2 months interest waived?

If you pay the card off every month they don't give you any interest back, they can't charge it anyway. Is there a point in even bothering with the card anyway? I had a Discover card before and never actually used it. Transferred a balance to it at 0% and paid it off, this was four years ago. I think my plan was better than their consistent payment plan.